All Our Yesterdays
by Luciente
Summary: The story of how and why Severus Snape became a Death Eater, and how and why he came to regret it. A tangled web of love, duty and destiny. Chapter 2 uploaded: Severus' first day at Death Eater HQ.
1. Prologue

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A/N: For those of you who are at all familiar with my work, this is indeed a continuation of Silver Shadows, set about three years after The Man Who Thought Too Much. For those who aren't, this is the story of Severus Snape's Death Eater years, from the summer he leaves Hogwarts to the night of Voldemort's downfall. The story is largely relationship-centred, although the actual pairings will be too numerous and complicated to list right now. Primary focus, however, will be on Severus Snape/Lucius Malfoy. Expect political idealism, snark-fests, complicated relationships, raw emotions and stylised sex. But there's only the idealism in this instalment.

Disclaimer: All characters and the general concept of wizardry as used in this piece are the property of JK Rowling and Warner Bros. I just like giving them a little more exposure.

~* All Our Yesterdays *~

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'And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death'

~ William Shakespeare's Macbeth

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Prologue: In which Severus Snape becomes a Death Eater

Severus Snape's knees are beginning to hurt. He has been motionless on them for nearly ten minutes now and can feel the muscles starting to seize up. He's forcing himself to concentrate on the little things like this; they take his mind off the big ones.

He doesn't know where he is, because he was blindfolded before being taken there and still is now, only able to imagine his surroundings. A constricted chorus of whispers and murmurs, of boredom grappling with curiosity but overbearingly of impatience, hisses and slurs around him, words unintelligible but one or two tones familiar and hence he assumes himself surrounded by Death Eaters. No sense of movement registers in front, nor behind, nor to either side, so he assumes himself immediately encircled by empty space. The held breath of expectancy that hangs in the air tells him the Dark Lord has not arrived yet, as equally does the lack of fearful respect Severus' soon-to-be master usually commands.

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It's cold here. But at least I'm dressed for it, which was more than I expected to be. Ceremonial green and silver is better than nothing at all, which is what I couldn't help but expect. I wonder where Evan is? Has he been done already? Is he standing watching me? I wish Lucius had told me what this is going to be like. Sworn to secrecy. But for all he could keep his mouth shut he couldn't hide the discomfort in his eyes when he looked at me and realised I would be next. He didn't want me to do this, and at the same time he did. He wanted the ends without the means, I think. 

You spent hours trying to persuade me to join, Luci. You pleaded a very convincing case. Of course you did, I wouldn't be here otherwise. At times you spoke dispassionately, as though reciting whatever argument had been tried on you, and these were always the arguments that never appealed to me. When I told you so, you laughed, and said they hadn't worked on you either. That you were just hedging your bets, that you wanted me to join so badly you were just trying anything. I'm willing to believe you, I think, if only because of the fire in your eyes when you told me everything that had_ convinced you. Everything that convinced me to go to the Lord for the first time._

I was sceptical. Still am, in no small part. I love you, Lucius, but it doesn't follow that I trust your judgement unquestioningly. You can be shortsighted at times, blinded by promises of quick gratification. I_ wanted to know what sort of life I was setting myself up for. You were so twitchy, Luci, before I went to see him; it almost made me laugh. You came up with a list a mile long of everything I should and shouldn't do, should and shouldn't think ('because I swear, Sev, he can read your mind'). Then Lestrange came in, and called you an idiot. I seem to remember that you hexed him for it._

So protective, Lucius. I'm not sure whether to be touched or insulted. I would have thought you'd believe me more than capable of looking after myself, and if you don't, you should, but at the same time I like that you worry about me. Are you worrying about me now, as you stand there in your mask? Will you want to jump forward and stop him when he burns the mark into my arm? You needn't, Lucius, I'm here for a reason and prepared for the worst. 

I opened my mind when I went to see the Lord, sat calmly, demurely, a blank canvas. Allowed him to do his best to convince me that this was indeed the path I wanted to follow. He was hardly inspiring. He was bombarding me with tried and tested reasoning that would probably have worked on anyone else, but not on me. I sat, and took it in, and nodded in all the right places, then threw caution to the winds and asked him what he really wanted, why he was really doing this. He stared at me, shrewdly, and then told me. I wasn't expecting him to. 

He talked of power, Lucius, just as you did so convincingly. The power that should belong to the best and the brightest, the greatest thinkers and sharpest minds. I smiled dryly, asked him why he'd bothered to recruit Crabbe and Goyle. I remember the way his laugh sounded, a little affected and almost nervous, and the way in which in that precise moment, he looked at me and seemed to re-evaluate his entire opinion of me. He never answered my question, but then I suppose it was a little rhetorical. 

It was this that caught you, wasn't it, Luci? Appealed to your ego and its vaulting ambition. It appealed to me, too. But if he had stopped there I don't think I would be kneeling here now, just turned nineteen years old, waiting to make either the best decision or worst mistake of my life. This is too big to depend on a little ego stroking. He knew, of course, that he wasn't going to get me like this. So he pulled his chair closer to mine, tweaked the intensity of his voice and spoke in earnest yet controlled tones of a realignment of justice. Told me that wizards like me, and you, Luci, he named you, and himself have suffered and will suffer at the hands of rigid, narrow morality. He described in soaring rhetoric my plight, the prejudice I have undergone born of an uptight, archaic Gryffindor code that dictates the greater good to be in the service of others. When for daring to believe in my own talent, for being so audacious as to serve at any time my own interests I have been condemned.

I don't doubt the Dark Lord has considerable acting talent. Nor do I doubt that he pulled out all the stops to get me, the look of poorly concealed triumph in his eyes when I said yes told me how much he had wanted me to join. But I won't deny that it got me thinking. Why is it always the stupid, the blindly loyal, the humble and the hard working, the ordinary who survive life better than anyone else? Because they are safe. Because they want nothing for themselves and everything for others. Because they will serve at your side and at your feet and contribute to society. Because they do not dare to assume that they deserve better. I am dangerous, because I have the audacity to recognise my own superiority. I need to be suppressed, because I believe there is power in the world that I should be able to lay claim to. I am derided, because I have talent and ability that I believe society should recognise and doesn't. I deserve more. Why should I be condemned for trying to attain it? 

It's something to believe in, at least. That something has to change. And there was a bitterness in the Dark Lord's voice that not even his carefully practised charm could conceal, and it makes me believe that a part of him feels the same way. That Tom Riddle lived through Hogwarts and wondered what warped system of logic gave the idiots around him the right to get away with murder. However much it may have been exaggerated for the benefit of a cynical sixteen-year-old with an abnormally strong concept of justice. 

So, this is it, then. I will make my oath and stretch out my arm, believing we can change the world. For better or worse. But better never means better for everyone. It always means worse, for some.1

A hush, sudden and almost tangible, settles on the waiting Death Eaters, followed closely by the sound of the sweeping and crumpling of robes. Severus knows the Dark Lord has entered; his followers have knelt before him and Severus hears the approach of footsteps. Although he cannot see he raises his head nevertheless, and is greeted with the familiarly affected laugh, pitched a little higher than he remembers. A swish of a wand, and the blindfold is removed.

Severus cannot take his eyes from the Dark Lord, although he wants to. He wants to look around the circle of masked Death Eaters he can see behind the Lord and out of the corners of his eyes, to search for any sign that Lucius is kneeling there. He thinks he would be able to recognise him, masked, robed and all. He would look for the effeminacy of his body, the way he slouches slightly to the left when he's been standing up for too long, the position in which he holds his hands and how he looks when he's breathing. 

But his eyes are riveted on the figure before him, his gaze held against his will. The Dark Lord's eyes unnerve Severus, virulent green shot through with tendrils of scarlet. Severus doesn't like to think how this scarlet snaked into his eyes, what spell or charm they proved the side effect of. The ageless man has changed since Severus first met him, all of three years ago. His good looks are approaching cadaverous, jet black hair offsetting shadows in the concaves of white skin, rendering his fine bone structure all the more startling. The smile is still versatile, flickering from rakish to conspiratorial through frighteningly dangerous, but Severus notices now as the Lord curves up his lips that sharply pointed fangs are showing through. Still smiling, the Dark Lord releases Severus' gaze and turns to his followers.

'Death Eaters. Rise.' They obey, unquestioningly, and Severus chances a glance at them for any sign of Lucius. In a second he thinks he may have found him, but in the shifting and shuffling of robes he forgets which one it was, and with a swirl of black robes Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, recaptures his attention.

'Tonight, my loyal followers,' he begins, smile curving charmingly across an impassive face. 'Tonight we are gathered to welcome two newcomers to our fold.' The smile quirks strangely at its corners. 'Assuming, that is, they are to prove themselves loyal.'

The metallic echoes of the Dark Lord's voice settle on the silent Death Eaters and Severus feels suddenly alone; every eye is fixed on the commanding presence before him and Severus can't help but feel that they should be looking at him. He can see, now, that the Death Eaters are not gathered but congregated, drawn to a decrepit church to worship a depraved God. Lord Voldemort, Tom Riddle, promises so much as he stands, smiling so strangely; he embodies to Severus the individual, his rights, to power, to selfishness. 

'Stand.' It was never going to come as a request. Severus stands, stiffly. Voldemort cocks his head to one side, looking him up and down with the same unshakeably strange smile. 

What he sees: male, six foot one, nineteen, thin, angular, overlong nose, black hair to his shoulders, compellingly attractive without being remotely good looking, faintly ridiculous overlarge green and silver ceremonial garb that makes him look skeletal.

What he really sees: the conquest he's been wanting ever since his first conversation with young Malfoy.

And thus it begins.

'Severus Snape.' A nod of acknowledgement, though none was required. 'You know why you are here.'

'Yes, my Lord.'

'Then tell us.' Severus is a little taken aback, and it shows. He wasn't expecting this. Voldemort's smile remains infuriatingly calm. He gestures towards the Death Eaters. 'Tell them.'

'I am here, my Lord,' Severus begins, and then stops. A flicker in his eyes comes and goes, and a bland smile touches the corners of his lips. 'I am here, my Lord, because I believe in the superiority of wizardkind. I am here because I believe it to be a cause worth fighting for. I am here because I wish to demonstrate my loyalty to you, my Lord, and the beliefs you put to me so eloquently. I am here because I wish to fight at your side.'

He didn't want the Dark Lord to believe him, not really. A good thing too, because he doesn't. But Severus knows what he wanted from this, and thinks he has achieved it. He wanted to show loyalty, of course he did; if he didn't he wouldn't be kneeling there, He hopes now, suddenly a little nervous, that it showed through somehow, in a twitch of his face or a lilt of his voice. What he also wanted, of course, was to show this figure of pomp and circumstance, of ritual and ceremony, that all this pageantry just amuses him. That of course, master, he'll keep up appearances, yet that he was never caught by the gloss and spin but rather by the substance. He doesn't want to be underestimated. 

The Death Eaters are nodding surreptitious approval around him but Lord Voldemort remains impassive and Severus feels his breath catch in his throat, feels a tension close in around him. Tom Riddle knows, though, what Severus just tried to say. He just doesn't want to tell him yet. Better to make him sweat, learn that this quiet, half-concealed derision will not stand here. In a way, though, the Dark Lord cannot help but respect him, and in a similar way this small show of individuality in the face of collective submission puts him even more in Tom Riddle's favour. At least he now knows he hasn't recruited a complete set of vacantly suggestible minions. 

'Well, Severus, who am I to refuse such a wish?' Severus visibly relaxes and Lord Voldemort smiles at the proof of the power he can exert. Severus kicks himself for being so damn obvious. 'Before I grant it, however,' says the Dark Lord, voice disarmingly languorous, 'you should know exactly what it is you have wished for.'

There is a movement, impossibly fast without being flustered, and Severus finds himself on his knees without having any idea how, a wand pointed directly between his eyes. He does not feel threatened, nor does the situation seem to him violent, merely as though a minute happened in a second, as though the Dark Lord wrinkled a moment in time for his convenience. What Severus can feel is the power radiating from the man before him, searing the air and enveloping both. This, now, is real. Severus conceives in an instant the magnitude of what he is about to do and then the conception dissolves, leaving behind the comfort of having once understood and a lingering feeling of acceptance. Calmly he kneels there, power singeing him around the edges, looks straight up into scarlet-shot eyes and, with a strange and nagging sense of destiny, offers himself up.

'You know, Severus, that in joining us, you must be prepared to perform any task you are set, unquestioningly.'

'Yes, my Lord.' With a half-smile.

'And you are willing to make this vow?'

'Yes, my Lord.' With a touch of sarcasm.

'You will wound for us.'

'Yes, my Lord.' Unwaveringly.

'You will maim for us.'

'Yes, my Lord.' Unconcernedly. 

'You will torture for us.'

'Yes, my Lord.' With a spark of sadism in his eyes.

'You will kill for us.'

'Yes, my Lord.' Warily, as though he wasn't expecting to be asked.

'You will not let feeling or emotion obstruct your devotion to us.'

'Yes, my Lord.' Guardedly; he doesn't like the way this is going.

'Then, if you were instructed to kill a friend, a loved one, a relative to further our cause – you would do it?'

There is a pause; Severus doesn't want it but it comes beyond his control. He knows, now, which one is Lucius, because he can feel his eyes on him. And oh, it feels like treachery, but he knows the right answer.

'Yes, my Lord.' Voldemort looks long and hard at Severus, an unpleasantly knowing smile curving one corner of his mouth. Severus can see him thinking it, this is his weakness. Everyone has one. To Voldemort, however, that there is a weakness is unimportant. All that matters is knowing what it is. The tall, black robed man nods absently, as though to himself, and steps back from Severus with an air of finality. The radiant power that surrounded him shimmers and pulses for a moment before dissipating, and Severus feels strangely light. 

'Then stand, Severus Snape.' Severus Snape duly stands. ''Your arm.' Voldemort grips his hand with the skeletal clutch of death, and it's all Severus can do not to gasp in pain. Needles of green light begin to stab out from between their clasped fingers. 'Swear your loyalty, as my Death Eaters are my witnesses.'

'I swear, my Lord,' Severus says, breath coming a little too fast. 'I swear my loyalty to my Lord and his followers.' Voldemort's grip tightens, and Severus' knees falter. 'Until the day of my death.' 

'Hence, Severus, to me you are magically bound.' With a smile in all but feeling, Voldemort releases Severus' hand, slowly. The needles of green light remain in the air and melt into threads, shifting and writhing. Severus watches, spellbound, as they weave the shape of the Mark he first saw in Lucius' arm, all of a year ago, but made of a light of such icy brilliance he senses that if he touched it, he would be burned to a crisp. 

It happens in a matter of seconds. Voldemort cries archaic words to the rafters and Severus sinks to the floor in pain beyond that which he has ever felt before; the skin at his wrist is boiling, rippling, melting and the pain blinds him, paralyses him, and then, in a second, it's all over. Severus is left on the cold stone floor with the tingling aftermath of agony flooding his body and feeling as though he's forgotten how to breathe. He looks at his arm; the Mark glows a faint, malevolent green.

'Death Eaters. Welcome Severus Snape to our fold.' Two Death Eaters behind Lord Voldemort part, creating a space that Severus is evidently meant to fill. He stands, looks down at himself. His robes are now black; he touches his face and finds it masked. He walks, legs a little unsteady, to merge into the circle, slipping into the gap opened for him. As he does so, the Death Eater on his right touches his hand, briefly but deliberately.

Lucius. 

'Bring the second.' Severus looks back at the scene playing out before him, startled from the slight relief that had come with familiarity. Now, though, the figure frog-marched through a gap in the far side of the circle is familiar, and it doesn't bring relief. 

Severus stares at Evan Rosier and wonders why all he wants is for it to be someone else. 

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~*TBC*~

A/N: 1 Margaret Atwood, _The Handmaid's Tale_

Credit for the interrogation should really go to George Orwell, being as the format is very loosely based on O'Brien's testing of Winston and Julia in _1984_.


	2. Welcome to Malfoy Manor

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Usual disclaimers apply; I own nothing, I make no money from them. I therefore ask not to be sued. This chapter's R rating is just to be on the safe side, mainly for not-so-subtly implied sex. This chapter is also distinctly shippier than the last, concentrating largely on the primary pairing Severus Snape/Lucius Malfoy. Ahead lie awkward conversations, not-so-fond reminiscences, and the realisation that Lucius Malfoy looks beautiful when he's angry.

~*All Our Yesterdays*~

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'And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death'

~ William Shakespeare's Macbeth

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Chapter 1: Welcome to Malfoy Manor

'Severus.' Narcissa Black sounded affectedly surprised. 'I wasn't expecting to see you here.'

'I can't imagine why not.' Severus Snape didn't bother to look up from the book he was flicking through, but then Narcissa supposed he had no real reason to. She took a moment's pause to look at him, grey-blue eyes thoughtful, before settling herself elegantly in the armchair closest to the fire. At this, Severus looked up. 'You're staying, then?' he queried. 

'I live here, Severus. As you seem to need reminding sometimes.' There was no real malice in her tone, which Severus appreciated.

'As do I, Narcissa. And believe me, it's difficult to forget,' he replied with something approaching a smile. He closed his book more than a little reluctantly, accepting peace and quiet as a fond memory. Narcissa returned the attempt at a smile, with little more of an effort.

'I don't think I'll ask what you meant by that.'

'No. It's probably best that you don't.' He paused. 'Where's Lucius?' Narcissa shrugged unconcernedly.

'Your guess is as good as mine.' She stretched a little, rearranging herself better on the frankly rather uncomfortable chair. Her attention wandered momentarily to her nails before she realised that Severus didn't look satisfied with her response. She sighed. 'He'll turn up, Severus. How much trouble can one devastatingly attractive wizard get himself into?'

'You'd be surprised.'

'And you'd know, of course.'

'Better than you would.' Narcissa's mouth twitched up in a smile. She liked eliciting a little emotion from Severus, more so when it was this childish. He was always so frustratingly restrained around her.

'I don't doubt that,' she agreed, meeting Severus' momentarily turbulent eyes calmly. He held her gaze for a second before relaxing, sinking back into his chair and very clearly away from Narcissa. She didn't intend to give up that easily. 'What are you reading?'

'Right now, nothing. What I _was_ reading before you broke my concentration was some immensely dry and academic tome on herbological catalyst reactions and their relevance in the modern world of industrial potions that Lucius dug out for me because he thought I might need something productive to do with my day…' Severus trailed off, face deadpan straight but eyes firmly fixed on Narcissa. She refused to rise to the bait.

'Oh, yes? I've been meaning to give that a try.' She smiled blandly. 'Is it good?' 

'Fascinating.'

'So I would imagine.' 

Severus often wondered why he bothered. She never rose to it, and he doubted that she ever would. Oh, it exercised his wit, undoubtedly, but he had plenty of other opportunities for that. Still he came back to Narcissa. Or rather, she came to him, and every time she did he started a battle he knew he would never win. Although, if it came to that, neither would she. There was just this sharp-edged, disquieting stalemate that disturbed the air between them, restless yet stagnant and almost tangible, whenever they found themselves within speaking distance, and it drove Lucius insane to see it. 

Why had she come to the library? Narcissa never came to the library, not least because she knew that Severus would be there. She would come home alone, the echoes of shadows under her eyes belying the strain exerted on her each and every day by whatever was demanded of her by the Mark burnt into her arm (Severus had never bothered to ask for the details), and melt effortlessly into the heritage that lived and breathed through the Manor. Severus saw the way she moved through corridor and anteroom, allowing the walls and floor and ceilings to grow accustomed to her, to embrace her as an extension of history. Marking not territory, but presence within that territory. 

He wasn't bitter about it. What reason had he to be bitter? He knew that she walked polished floors alone, exchanging constricted conversations with Lucius whenever they chanced to meet and constantly listening for the echoes that told her to turn back. He knew that she contented herself with the sporadic company of friends he had never met, and never wanted to meet, and that it was them she turned to for the sound of voices other than her own. And yet it was difficult to triumph, to revel in it, when Severus recognised in her what he was so accustomed to in himself, an innate satisfaction with her own company. He couldn't even take comfort in her loneliness.

Because she knew, and he knew she knew. He couldn't even throw it back at her. She knew her part in this, and took it with calm self-possession and an unconcerned acquiescence. It didn't touch her to know that Severus had something she didn't, not as it touched Severus to know the converse. Narcissa had something Severus wanted desperately, and knew he could never have: the right to belong. Oh, he would always belong at Malfoy Manor; as long as Lucius was living there he would be welcome. But he would never have the right to it, the irrevocable claim to the life and the love he enjoyed that Narcissa had and didn't even want. He hated it, this abstract and indistinct power that she held over him, the gleam of her eyes in a certain light that never failed to remind him of it.

As he watched her that night, unable to read with her presence unsettling him, he realised he couldn't see even a trace of that gleam. It struck him that he rarely, if ever, saw Narcissa returning from work. Before she left, yes, at breakfast occasionally, a few early afternoon exchanges of civilities, but never at night. Something seemed different about her, even to Severus' eyes, so sharp when they wanted to be and so blind to so much else. Now, he looked at her properly for perhaps the first time since they had met. She had changed her clothes since her return, evidently, black robes and mask discarded for something deep green and velvety that Severus dimly recalled Lucius buying her in a vague attempt at courtesy. It didn't suit her; she wasn't quite pale enough to look striking in something so dark. Severus could always sense the significant, however, and his eyes were quickly drawn to hers. He saw not her eyes, but a translucency around them, a fragile quality to the skin and a slight darkening. She was tired, he thought, impassively.

'When are _you _likely to be called up?' Narcissa's soft, measured tones were inquiring, not accusatory. Severus replied with equally careful civility.

'Lucius tells me soon.'

'Lucius doesn't know what he's talking about,' Narcissa replied swiftly, yawning slightly. There was no bite to it, nor affection, just a simple statement of fact. Severus raised an eyebrow.

'And you presume to know enough to know that?' he asked lightly. 

'I know enough to know that I know very little.' She smiled. 'Lucius doesn't seem to have quite mastered that concept yet.' She studied Severus carefully as he nodded a slight acknowledgement. 'Nor, I would imagine, have you,' she announced, still watching the man sitting opposite her. 'Although I'd say you know more than Lucius.'

'I'm more willing to know than Lucius,' Severus replied. His face had closed as Narcissa had spoken; his momentary relaxation dissipating. This simple statement, however, seemed to confuse Narcissa. She cocked her head to one side and stared thoughtfully at him, not asking him to explain himself, merely coming to her own conclusion about what he meant. Eventually she shrugged.

'I'll take your word for it. After all, I couldn't possibly comment.' Severus laughed, strangely.

'No. I'm sure you couldn't.' He smiled, blandly. 'And yet on Lucius you can. How strange.' Narcissa bristled slightly.

'I may not have spoken to him much, Severus,' she began, a sharp edge to her voice that she made an obvious effort to control as she went on. 'But I have still spoken to him more than I have to you. And besides,' she added, somewhat defensively, 'he's easier to read than you are.'

'I won't deny that.' It sounded like acquiescence, but he was far from agreeing. Suddenly, and desperately, Severus wanted Narcissa to leave. She showed no signs of doing so.

'Soon, then. Whatever that might mean.' It wasn't the subtlety Severus had come to expect from Narcissa, but any subject change was welcomed. 'Are you looking forward to it?' she queried, a note of genuine curiosity resonating behind practised blandness.

'I wouldn't say that, exactly,' Severus replied. 

'Then what would you say?' It made Severus start slightly, then twitch the corners of his mouth up into an unpleasant smile. The rise he had been waiting for, the impatience in Narcissa's voice that told him he could frustrate her, he could make her want to lash out at him just as he wanted to do at her. Childish, it seemed to him, even as he relished it. Narcissa always seemed to bring that out in him, it was a source of great irritation. Not least, he thought, because it lessened the victory he took from her slight losses of control when he was by default equally guilty. He proceeded to push his advantage home by replying with perfectly controlled bland courtesy.

'That it will come when it comes.' He shrugged, non-committally. 'It'll be something new to keep me busy. A challenge, at any rate.' Narcissa nodded. She rubbed a hand over her eyes. Conversations between her and Severus were exhausting, clipped and constricted, every word weighted and hanging heavily between them. 

'And Merlin knows that such a great mind needs to be challenged,' she murmured. Severus looked at her curiously. 

'Indeed,' he agreed, a little perplexed. Narcissa waved a dismissive hand.

'It radiates from you, Severus, although you probably don't realise. You have that aura of genius.' Severus was looking at her almost incredulously.

'And another one I should never underestimate.'

'Sorry?'

'Not important.' Narcissa nodded, accepting this.

The first thing Severus had done upon first meeting Narcissa had been to compare her to Lucius. They were alike, he had thought, in many ways. Similar in height; Lucius had never been extraordinarily tall. Similar, almost, in shape; unlike the hard, sharp angles of Severus' frame Lucius had always been rather effeminate in build. Identical in skin tone, looking as though a blush had never crossed their high cheekbones. A casual onlooker would have appropriately called it a somewhat narcissistic union, and it had struck Severus too just how much they resembled each other. And yet simultaneously to him they were entirely different. Narcissa's hair was darker, and curled somewhat; her grey eyes were diffused with a blue that Lucius' lacked entirely. The note that resonated as her voice died away was control, not confidence. Every movement she made was measured, carefully honed to an exacting propriety. She invited no criticism by ensuring there _was_ nothing to criticise; Lucius would merely convince you beyond all measure of doubt that there wasn't, whatever the truth of the matter may be. 

Severus had been at the Manor the summer when Christian and Alana Malfoy had first introduced Narcissa to their son. Lucius' parents had always been sensitive to his part in all this, and hadn't so much as frowned when seventeen-year-old Severus had refused even to look up as she entered. They had merely introduced Narcissa formally to Lucius, the bland picture of impeccably feigned courtesy (complete with a kiss of the hand), and left the three of them to sort things out amongst themselves. Put simply, when faced with the choice of acting in their son's best interests, and their own best interests, they had chosen to wash their hands of the entire affair and leave everything up to Lucius. Severus could never quite make up his mind whether this had been a stroke of genius, or a moment of idiocy.

Severus had remained quiet that first time, if for nothing else then to make things easier for Lucius. He had retreated behind a carefully guarded impassiveness, repressing all outward signs of the frustration twitching within him, while Lucius had rounded petulantly on Narcissa. As Severus watched Lucius had treated Narcissa to the full grandeur of his eloquence, stringing together threats, complaints and bold assertions into a vehemently and convincingly rendered outline of exactly why Narcissa should never consider herself welcome at Malfoy Manor. Narcissa had taken this with quiet complicity, nodding slowly as a slightly flushed and uncomfortable Lucius had wound himself down to a close and glancing thoughtfully at Severus, who, for all his carefully contrived indifference, had been unable to keep a blush from his cheeks at Lucius' rather impassioned references to him. 

She had taken it in her stride. Had reassured Lucius with seemingly genuine unconcern that love wasn't the point of an arranged marriage. That as long as he wasn't intending to go out of his way to make life difficult for her, she really couldn't care less what he did with himself. Or anyone else, she had added, shooting an unreadable glance at Severus. After all, it wasn't as if she had chosen this. She had seemed calm to the point of apathy, and yet there had been a warning lurking in her softly measured tones that neither Severus nor Lucius had failed to pick up on. Insistent, she had been, on mutuality. That if Lucius would co-operate, so too would she. To be fair to her, Severus thought, so far she had kept up her end of the bargain. From that first meeting he had never felt included in it, and as such felt no obligation to uphold it, a fact that had been made abundantly clear to Lucius on the day that Narcissa had moved into Malfoy Manor.

That had been the brilliant idea of the elder Malfoys. Allowing the prospective happy couple to grow a little accustomed to each other. Severus had always thought that they had wanted to prevent any unpleasant and potentially harmful surprises following the wedding. Better to get any difficulties ironed out before the ideal of the next generation Malfoys was presented to the world in all its blonde-haired perfection, ripe for tarnishing. Although the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he was misjudging Christian and Alana. He had always believed that they loved their son, regardless of whether that love won out over the responsibilities they all had to adhere to. Perhaps they had been genuinely uncomfortable with the arranged marriage, and had wanted to at least let each party know what they were letting themselves in for. Certainly when Lucius had, with a calm and brazen independence, extended the offer of cohabitation to Severus, neither parent batted an eyelid, and for that much, Severus would forgive them a great deal.

They had moved in almost simultaneously, within days of each finishing school. Narcissa was the same age as Severus, that is, about a year younger than Lucius, and as she returned from Durmstrang and Severus from Hogwarts, both fully qualified wizards, Malfoy Manor threw open its doors to Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy threw open his arms to Severus. Very little had changed since that first day, other than that Severus was now a Death Eater. Lucius still returned to Severus every night and stayed until every morning after, afternoons when he could, seeking Severus out in the library as he attempted to work his way through every dusty tome in the expansive collection. He continued to barely acknowledge Narcissa's existence, despite the two having discovered that they tolerated each other rather well, conversing civilly with her whenever they chanced to meet while never going out of his way to do so. Severus and Narcissa continued to demonstrate a barely concealed abhorrence towards each other through dialogue so frayed and seething with so much emotion that Lucius flinched back from them each time the three chanced to meet, melting into Severus and away from the agonising intensity that resonated in the air. For the sake of Lucius' sanity, they tried not to meet very often.

'You want to know why I came to the library tonight,' Narcissa stated, calmly. Severus sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with long fingers. Narcissa's quietly composed presence was becoming an irritation he could do without. 

'I can't imagine why you would think that would concern me.'

'You don't find my presence here at all strange?' she queried, trying to engage Severus' gaze. He had no intention of co-operating.

'As you so pointedly remarked earlier, you live here,' he replied. 'What reason would you have _not _to be in the library?' Narcissa shrugged.

'Perhaps because I've been avoiding you.'

'Such a thought never crossed my mind.' Narcissa smiled.

'No. Of course not,' she said, shifting on her chair. Severus was starting to feel a pressure inside his head. Reluctantly, he sat up straight, allowing his book to finally fall from his lap. He looked directly at Narcissa.

'Narcissa. Is there something I can do for you?' Narcissa met Severus' eyes boldly, but a spark of something that looked almost like awe registered in the face of the intensity his gaze could display. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and the unspoken word hung suspended between them for a moment. Then she shook her head, sighed, and stood up.

'Nothing whatsoever, Severus,' she murmured. He followed her silent exit with thoughtful black eyes, noting absently with the appraising glance of an aesthete the swirl of her deep green robes as they whipped around the closing door. A weight seemed to lift from the room, and Severus smiled to himself. A short-term goal, at least, had been accomplished.

Severus had fallen for the library he was sitting in during his very first visit to the Manor, back in the summer of his fourth year at school. Of course, the other two were equally impressive, but he'd had to choose one, and something about this one had appealed. Looking back on it, Severus supposed he hadn't really needed to make any such kind of choice, but it had felt like the most natural thing to do. 

The problem with Malfoy Manor was that there was too much of everything. Even now Severus would never have claimed to have seen even the door to every room in the house, much less the inside of them. So much space, coupled with so few people, could have proved a volatile combination; the only way to stop oneself commencing the slow slide into madness was to decide, from the beginning, the tracks you were going to trace through the mansion, the rooms you would use and the rooms you would never need to go near, and essentially pretend that the rest of the house didn't exist. 

This library was one of Severus' rooms, although before (and still) it was Lucius'. Severus would tell himself now that he had picked it because of the feel of the chairs, the glint of the spines in the firelight, the fact that the picture above the mantelpiece smiled at him when he walked in when most of the others in the house looked on him as something akin to superfluous. He would never admit, if he even knew it himself, that it was a lingering sense of Lucius that drew him here that first time, that ghosts, or perhaps memories, or even echoes of the youngest Malfoy walked these floorboards and reclined in these chairs and drew leather bound books from the shelves with careful fingers and languid interest. Severus had slipped into the patterns of Lucius' early life, following at first the boy himself, as a wide-eyed and longhaired teenager. Then later, as he found himself alone from time to time, he followed the whispers and the murmurs trailed in the older boy's wake. 

Now, nineteen years old and alone from day to day, he barely realised that he was no longer tracing Lucius' paths but retreading the memories of his own footfalls. Because for all circumstance had granted Narcissa her claim to the house, she had never laid claim to it. Not in the way Severus had, in the way he looked at Lucius but more in the way he made Lucius look at him, with an emotion deep and abstract that had made more of an impression on this generation's Malfoy than all the weight that bore down on him from his lineage. Narcissa could feel it when her beaten tracks through the labyrinthine mansion crossed his, a subtle change, a presence of sorts. She never flinched from the echoes of Lucius, but a shiver ran down her spine when she could sense Severus. She couldn't explain why.

Evan Rosier had once told Severus that he could exert far more influence than he thought. He had screamed it, actually, a long and painful note of anguished exasperation that had reverberated through the common room, leaving a heavy silence in its wake. Severus had stared, the fury burning his eyes dying, as Evan had looked at him in that way he did from time to time that on a deep and fundamental level frightened him, with a gaze that felt like fingernails raking through his mind. Evan always knew, with a surgeon's precision, the exact cut to make and how deep to make it, and it always worked because Evan could see things that very few others could and make you see them in a way that would make sure you wouldn't be quick to forget them. And each and every time he did so, after the shreds of each argument lay dying on the floor, after his piercing gaze had faltered, his eyes, a clear sharp blue, would dullen with perhaps regret, perhaps guilt, the feeling that each and every time he had played dirty.

Those eyes had taken to haunting Severus of late. Evan was a fairly frequent visitor to the Manor, although he always left before Lucius came home. He would sit in the chair opposite Severus, the chair Narcissa had taken, and bitch elegantly with Severus about life, the universe, and everything, taking teasing pot-shots every now and again at the absent lord of the manor with a hardness running beneath his words and an intensity of expression that for all Severus believed the remarks innocuously meant, he couldn't help a slight discomfort. But it was his eyes, burnt into Severus' mind, that stayed once Evan had left. The look he had shot directly at his closest friend, intuition seeing past the blank white mask, as he knelt, branded, before the Dark Lord.

It was indescribable, thought Severus, shuddering at the unwelcome recollection. At once haunted and tortured, but overwhelmingly something more terrible than both, the stare of a man who has seen something no man should ever have to see. Evan had the Sight, and in abundance, Severus had known that much since first year. He rarely exercised it consciously, and never welcomed it when it came of its own accord, which was usually in dreams. He had become rather popular among the girls of his year when it was revealed that he would willingly tell their fortunes, for a small price, of course. Severus knew he never so much as tried to See for them, just looked at them with that strange stare of his and told them almost unerringly what they wanted to hear. Severus had always thought it was funny, but then he had never been a believer in destiny. He would never have doubted that Evan Saw, but equally would never have believed that everything that was Seen was what must, irrefutably, come to pass.

'If it comes true, then it's only because you make it so,' he had said once, dismissively. 'If you believe it will happen, unconsciously you will make certain decisions that will force it to, nothing more.' Evan had laughed, but somewhat humourlessly.

'If you say so, Severus.' He had then smiled, his familiar, teasing smile, and challenged his friend again. 'But what if I've Seen that you won't believe what I tell you I've Seen and try and change your future to something else that I've already Seen?' Severus had glared at him.

'It's unkind of you to trouble me with such fascinating paradoxes when I'm _trying_ to finish this Rune translation,' he had said, archly.

'Just because I've confused you...' Severus had shown him an elegant middle finger, and returned to his homework.

Severus was almost certain his friend had Seen something the night of his initiation. He still didn't believe it was the future. But he feared for Evan, feared him being consumed by whatever vision of doom had come upon him that night, feared him believing it. He had asked him, obviously, what it was, but received nothing more than a flippant 'I thought you didn't believe in all that, Severus?' for his pains. Which was hardly reassuring. Even less so the memory that persisted in surfacing unbidden in his head, the memory of a vague and inexplicable momentary feeling of dread as he had watched Evan kneel before the Dark Lord, abstract and fleeting but very much there. 

Why had Evan chosen to offer himself? Lucius and Lestrange were easy to explain, although Lucius had taken some carefully worded convincing the fundamental promise of power was too intoxicating to pass up. Each of the three had tried their own reasoning on Evan, the last to be converted though he was far from an absolute sceptic. He had listened carefully to every argument, nodding thoughtfully and sending sharply observed criticisms to cut ideologies down the middle. Whenever the subject had been broached Evan had become blankly unreadable, projecting an outward attentiveness and consideration while not even Severus really knew what he was thinking. Something had made up his mind, however, and while it resembled neither the fire and passion of Severus' strong-willed idealism, nor the gleeful optimism of Lucius and Lestrange's enthusiasm, it was something, and something determined at that.

And yet was it a mistake, thought Severus, almost dozing before the heat of the fire, and if it was for him, why not for the rest of us? The question hung suspended by tendrils of thought in his mind as he slipped into the early stages of sleep, oblivious to the soft sound of the library door opening and closing.

'Did you miss...' Lucius Malfoy's voice trailed off into the fire-warmed air as he saw Severus, apparently fast asleep. 'Shit,' he cursed softly, making his way with silent footsteps over to the younger man's chair. He knelt beside it, concern crossing his face as he looked carefully at his lover's closed eyes. 'Sev?' he murmured. One black eye opened.

'Silence isn't really your strong point, is it, Lucius?' 

'Did I wake you?'

'Well, you were doing a pretty lousy job of trying not to, weren't you?' Lucius sat back on his heels, pouting somewhat.

'I didn't mean to.'

'Takes nothing away from the fact that you did.' Both of Severus' eyes were open now, and he fixed Lucius with an impressively convincing disapproving glare. The blonde stood, vaguely aggrieved.

'Well, sorry, I'm sure, for wanting to talk to my boyfriend after I've been working all day without seeing him once,' he snapped. 'May I remind you that you have, after all, had all day to sleep? I can't see why you have to choose the only time I'm likely to see you to do so.' Severus raised an elegant eyebrow.

'It's not my fault you don't let me get enough sleep at night,' he pointed out, face deadpan straight. Lucius narrowed his eyes at him.

'Entirely beside the point. And not likely to happen in future if you _will_ persist in being so...' Lucius found himself tangled up in the end of his own sentence, gesticulating around the word he wanted. Severus smiled for the first time upon seeing him, a smile of dancing eyes and twitching lips.

'Merlin, but you're gorgeous when you're angry,' he murmured. Lucius abruptly stopped waving his hands around and looked shrewdly at him.

'You weren't asleep, were you?' Severus shook his head, smiling an apologetic smile.

'No.' Lucius tried to glare at him, but failed miserably. Instead he returned to Severus' chair, curling up on the floor at his feet with a sigh.

'You know, one of these days I'm going to stop forgiving you for this,' he remarked. Severus shook his head again.

'No, you won't. You haven't yet.' He smiled a smile that Lucius couldn't see. 'And besides, the look on your face is worth it anyway.'

'Fuck you, Sev,' Lucius yawned, resting his head on Severus' knee. Almost absent-mindedly, the younger boy began to wrap strands of long white-blonde hair around his fingers.

Severus had discovered that Lucius looked beautiful angry within just weeks of meeting him, properly, for the first time. When fifth-year Lucius had been failing Potions, and had come sullenly to be tutored by fourth-year Severus. When all they had ever done was kissed, nervously, and when each still looked away when the other met their eyes. Thursday evenings spent in the library trying desperately to make Lucius understand the theory of potion making, staring at each other when each thought the other was working, moving chairs closer together every time until their legs touched under the table, involuntarily at first, then purposefully, as Lucius regained the confident charisma that he had lost so unexpectedly to Severus. The first night that Lucius had snapped as Severus had known he would, had thrown quill and parchment to the floor and stormed all of three feet from the desk, frustrated and insecure for the first time in his life because for all he tried, he just couldn't do it. And Severus had stopped him in his tracks with the most disarming compliment Lucius had ever received.

'Have I ever told you how beautiful you look when you're angry?'

Oh, and nothing had changed to this day, thought Severus, nothing in all of four years. Lucius outlined against shelf upon shelf of dusty tomes, every spine faded next to his sharp and radiant brightness, features thrown into sharp relief by flickering firelight. For while Severus could never be called beautiful, Lucius could never be called anything but, pale skin over fine bone structure, nose and brow and cheekbones as expertly cut as his hair. Some people's hair changed colour from light to light, like Evan's, but Lucius' was never anything but that curious mix of white and blonde and silver that somehow managed to crystallise into a single, pure colour and falling, ever since Severus had known him, to his shoulders. And the grey of his eyes would shift and swirl like a Pensieve, turbulent as storm clouds, every emotion spilling out unhindered. And power, or intelligence, or sexuality radiated from him with a brilliance that turned everything around him to a shadow of itself, from the fall of his hair and the openness of his eyes, the flush across his cheekbones and the twist of his mouth. And all Severus had to do was wind him up.

He had always wanted Lucius Malfoy. But then, everyone had always wanted Lucius Malfoy, whether they admitted it to themselves or not. Most of them had actually _had_ Lucius Malfoy, thought Severus with a twisted smile. Before he had come along, of course. Lucius had told him one night, whispered it in his ear as the afterglow was dying, voice drugged with sex and sleep, that Severus had been on his mind from the day he sat, a second year, and clapped languidly as the young Snape, Severus, had Sorted Slytherin. Severus believed him at the time, and hadn't dwelled on it since. He remembered, though, drifting off into sleep and thinking back over three years spent crossing paths and following each other down the corridor with loaded gazes, neither really able to explain what it was that compelled them about the other. Severus still couldn't have explained it, although it didn't necessarily follow that he didn't know, on some level. But all he knew and could define was that now, after four years, when he was with Lucius he couldn't imagine being with anyone else. And when he wasn't, he never wished he were, because it was a given that in time, he would be.

'Narcissa came down a little before you arrived.'

'Oh?' Strange how much meaning can be carried by a single syllable, thought Severus. In one perfect, rounded sound, Lucius cared, and didn't, was angry and indifferent, curious and nonchalant, and it was difficult to tell which emotions were affected. 

'Mm. She's never come down to the library when I've been here.'

'I can't imagine why not.' 

'Sarcasm doesn't become you, Lucius,' Severus said, dryly. Lucius turned his head to look up at him, ambivalence flickering over his face as he regarded Severus carefully.

'Why did she come down?' he asked, after a pause. Severus shrugged.

'She didn't say.' Lucius laughed mirthlessly.

'You mean it was just for the conversation?'

'I think I should be offended by that remark,' Severus said, half-heartedly affronted. Lucius laughed again, this time sincerely.

'Sev, 'conversation', when applied to you and Narcissa, can be roughly translated as the oral equivalent of Chinese Water Torture. For both the pair of you and any unfortunate bystanders,' he said, yawning slightly. 'But _only _when applied to you and Narcissa,' he added, as Severus had failed to see this as sufficiently placating. 'Did it bother you, anyway?' he went on, still looking intently at his lover. 'Because I can make her stop, if you want.' So very Lucius, convinced that the world was wrapped around his little finger. Severus wondered idly if Narcissa would obey him, if asked. There didn't seem a simple answer.

'She disturbed my reading, is all,' he said, dismissively. 'And somehow I doubt she'll be coming back anyway.'

'You were that much fun to be around?'

'Is it so hard to believe?' Finally Lucius turned himself fully around, looking straight up into Severus' eyes.

'What I find hard to believe is that anyone would not want to spend every minute they could with you,' he said, with disarming frankness. Severus smiled a slow smile in silent response. 'Narcissa's a fool.'

'Entirely too true,' Severus agreed. 'She doesn't know what she's missing.' A look of something crossed Lucius' face, something approaching exasperation but not directed at Severus.

'Do we have to talk about Narcissa? I find it far easier to forget she exists if we don't,' he said, an unnatural affectation to his tone. Severus could feel it radiating from him, however much he tried to hide it, the pure and absolute emotion that for Lucius _was _Narcissa Black; her airs and graces and affected gestures, her careful manners and flawless restraint, her infuriating self-control, everything about her embodied for Lucius frustration. Complete and perfect and utterly maddening, a single humming note wavering off-key, too quiet to assimilate, too loud to ignore.

'Then how was your day?' Severus inquired smoothly, eliciting a sparkling smile from the man approaching twenty curled up at his feet.

'I don't want to talk about that, either,' Lucius decided. Severus cocked his head curiously to one side.

'No? Then what do you want to talk about? Because if it's not suitably fascinating, I'm going back to sleep. I think you'd find it pretty hard to be as interesting as you were in the dream you so rudely woke me up from.' Lucius' eyes flashed steel fire as he grinned suddenly at Severus, who knew at once that somewhere, a button had been pressed.

'Oh, really?' Lucius asked, voice dangerous in the best possible way. 'Am I to understand,' he continued, standing in a single swift movement, 'that you'd rather be asleep,' – he laid a hand on each arm of Severus' chair, leaning in towards him – 'than here talking to me?' His face was inches away from Severus', whose breath was caught in anticipation.

'I think that was the gist of it, yes,' he murmured, almost nervously expectant. Eyebrows raised archly, Lucius tossed back his hair, theatrically.

'And that a dream could _possibly_ be more interesting than the real thing?' he queried elegantly, fixing Severus with a disapproving glare. Severus nodded, a little breathless.

'That sounds about right.' Lucius looked as though he was digesting this, nodding thoughtfully and studying Severus' face with serious grey eyes.

'Well, then,' he began, deliberately. 'I suppose that's what you'd call a challenge.'

And Severus, with a gasp and a shiver, fell headfirst and uncontrollably into Lucius Malfoy, hands and arms and legs and lips, neck and chest and thighs and hips, hopelessly and irretrievably. But this was Lucius, for him, and this was being with Lucius, absolute and irrefutable, a sequence that couldn't play out any other way. And Severus didn't believe in destiny and never would, but this had never been what was meant to be, or what had to be, it was what was, and could only be, each and every moment in the fragment of a second it transpired. The future held no meaning, a distant and abstract concept, and yet in the desperation of Lucius' touch and the ache resonating in his sighs Severus wondered if they were living in the future already, knowing without admitting that the present, the immediate they believed in was the death throes of a simpler past that it was easier to cling to than discard. For at least the past was definite when the future was uncertain.

A hand, a mouth, a sound from somewhere deep in someone's throat and the sheen of sweat-soaked skin. Never a blur of imperfect sensation, never a coherent flow of emotion, rather a chain of crystallised impressions, brilliant and lucid flashes of reality. But reality was never just Lucius, Lucius in the instant, then and there. Every bright hard moment carried with it every moment similar from every year they had known each other; Lucius' hand, exactly there, in the morning, evening, before class or after Quidditch, and Severus' shallow breath echoing in the library, the dormitory, bedroom, bathroom and hallway. A thousand trysts, layer upon layer of echo and memory, and this was what it felt like, this was what Lucius felt like, all Severus' impressions of him at once.

And sprawled there across the chair, robes awkward but it didn't matter, and leg bent at a strange angle but he didn't care, and Lucius' weight heavy on him but he hardly noticed, this was wholeness and entirety because that was what Lucius did, almost without realising. When he was there, he was everything, and everything revolved around him, and yet he was momentary and instant, for when he wasn't, he could be forgotten, although Severus rarely tried. After a moment, at least, for he was a flash of such glaring brilliance that the world seemed grey for the second after he was gone, and the purple bruise of his silhouette was burnt fleetingly into your retinas. And he knew, and he didn't, that this was what drew him and Lucius together. Because Lucius' light reflected blindingly from most sycophantic faces, but Severus absorbed it as though it had never existed. Because Lucius illuminated Severus without ever outshining him, and because Severus tempered Lucius without ever obscuring him. Because neither would concede the other's superiority.

And Lucius' touch burned, flames licking down every nerve in his body and it was almost delirium, now, a weight of oppressive heat bearing down on the skin Lucius didn't have the hands to touch, and searing from the skin under the hands that were, and radiating from the body they belonged to, and everything was focusing in now into a concentrated beam of feeling, white-hot and lethal, a rounded note keening up into a crescendo, rising and rising until – a twist, a writhe and a convulsion, an echoing cry and the beam shattering into a firework of sparks, and the note fading into shallow, ragged breathing and the sound of satiation.

'Never let it be said you don't rise to a challenge, Luci.'

'Some challenges are more fun to rise to than others.'

And as they lay tangled there, that strange serenity surrounding them, footsteps left unheard from behind the library door.


	3. Death Eater HQ

Okay, standard disclaimers apply. Anything affiliated with the Harry Potter universe as it currently exists in canon does not belong to me, nor am I making any money from it. I'm just playing, that's all.

This fic deals with dark and difficult themes, which is why it will be rated R throughout. Expect intermittent sex, death and strong language as and when they are relevant to the story. It concentrates on Severus Snape's time as a Death Eater, his relationship with Lucius Malfoy and his friendship with Evan Rosier, among many, many other things. But right now its main attraction is probably VaguelyCamp!Voldemort.

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~*All Our Yesterdays*~

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'And all our yesterdays have but lighted fools the way to dusty death'

~ William Shakespeare's Macbeth

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Chapter 2: Death Eater HQ

'Malfoy. Deadline change.' Lucius Malfoy looked up to see Edward Avery brandishing a piece of parchment from the door. 'He wants it done by Friday.'

'_Accio _parchment.' Lucius caught it deftly and read over it, frowning as he did so. 'He'll be lucky,' he muttered, tossing it to one side and returning to his work. Remembering himself, he looked up again. 'Thanks, Avery.'

'Not a problem.' The stocky, ash-blonde man left with a casual stride, and a wave of frustration washed over Lucius.

'Shut the bloody door,' he called after him, rubbing his temples with long fingers. A word echoed faintly in the distance, and the door to the room closed with a bang. Lucius winced at the sound, and turned tired grey eyes back to the work spread out across his desk.

Not that it could really be called his desk. He had been sitting at it for nearly five days now, but it was far from the first he had worked on. He had rarely spent more than a week at any desk in Headquarters. The morning after each project was completed, he would arrive in the Entrance Hall to find his name scrawled in a different space of the living map sketched in green-glowing magic across the right-hand wall, and he would open the door of each different space to find his work laid out for him and a note of instructions in a bland, generic, character-less hand. It was always the same hand, recognisable in that it was unremarkable.

And again, the same hand marred the surface of the parchment he had summoned. Only a few words, no more than were necessary to inform Lucius that rather than next Tuesday, he only had until Friday to complete the task he had been set five days ago. The Dark Lord is optimistic, thought Lucius, as he stared at the parchments in front of him, some covered in his own elegant scrawl, some in the unreadable hand of Avery, some in meticulously printed lines and letters that looked somewhat more official. In the spaces between the parchments lay stacks of books, drawn from the gaps in the shelves that lined the walls of the room in which Lucius sat, which occasionally collapsed and made Lucius jump. 

The idea was that Lucius had been given a blueprint of a single door in the Ministry, what lay behind it he had no clue. This blueprint detailed the exact specifications of every inch of the door, including what would happen to an unauthorised individual who decided to try and open it. Lucius had been asked to ascertain the exact combination of curses that lay on the door, and then produce some sort of spell that could disable them. The first part had been easy enough; the last was proving rather more difficult.

Of course, the exhaustion wasn't exactly helping. Lucius was perfectly capable of completing the task; he wouldn't have been given it if he weren't. He had proved himself to have something of a talent for spell synthesis, which the Dark Lord had quickly picked up on and made use of. But he was tired, more tired than he could ever remember being in his life. His concentration span had been whittled down to mere seconds; his eyes kept slipping in and out of focus. As either he or his surroundings moved he saw trails of motion blur smudging the air; every gesture seemed composed of a series of frames, invisible at normal working speed, but now isolated with nothing to fill the spaces between them. He felt fragmented as he moved; there was continuity in nothing but the pain festering behind his left temple, pulsating and swelling and spreading out tendrils that crept across his face, behind his eyes, tightening across the bridge of his nose and stabbing into the nerves of his teeth. Everything else was jagged and jarring, sharp shattered sounds that fell on him like a rainstorm of needles, but this pain was constant for as long as he sat in this room and looked at this work, this work that he couldn't do because he couldn't concentrate, and he couldn't concentrate because his head hurt, and his head hurt because he was still trapped in this room, and he was still trapped in this room because he couldn't finish this bloody work.

He wondered, briefly, if a change of scenery might help. This room above all the others he had been in had one fundamental flaw, in Lucius' eyes, and that was that there were no windows. He hated it, hated the dull and polluted light that seeped from the glass-covered torches mounted high upon the walls. He loathed the soft and muted edge that the room took on, loathed that rather than exposing and illuminating this light seemed to shroud and obscure. Living in a dungeon had almost killed Lucius at school; he had in the end been pushed to enchant windows onto his dormitory walls in order to see natural light when he was down there. Lucius loved the light that can only be found in the open air of the daytime, the pure light of that sharp and unique quality that can, like nothing else, render everything it touches real and absolute. This pitiful excuse for light was slowly and relentlessly driving Lucius insane with every second he spent contaminated by it, coating with its yellowish glow every day the same ink-stained desk, the same cushionless chair, the same towering bookshelves, the same Victorian décor, the same parquet floor and hideous rug, the same bloody everything and if Lucius had never been claustrophobic before, he was now.

The heavy door opened a crack, and Lucius considered making a break for it. In a second a thousand wild visions of escape flooded his brain, before a thin figure slipped through the gap and the floods subsided. 

'What do you _want_, Nott?' Nott looked a little taken aback. For all the exasperation in Lucius' voice, the older man had never interrupted Lucius before, so was more than a little confused. Equally, however, he rather resented being snapped at, and so was hardly forthcoming with his reply.

'Well, if you don't _want_ the curse that'll make your life easier, fine.'

'What the fuck do you know about what I'm working on, Nott?' Lucius questioned, wearily. The thin, sharp-faced man smiled unpleasantly.

'Avery sent it.' Lucius swore to himself. Although Edward Avery was not working with Lucius as such, Lucius had none the less asked him for help in a certain area, knowing him to have significant specialised knowledge of the subject. Which meant that regrettably, Nott probably did know what he was talking about. Although it wasn't as though he was going to keep it from him anyway. '_Accio _parchment.'

Nott looked as though a minor victory had been stolen from him as Lucius caught and read the note. Lucius was not the most popular of the Death Eaters, he was among the most talented, and recognised as such; the Dark Lord's child prodigy at the age of just twenty. Most of his peers were well aware that Lucius' power, intelligence and skill meant that if rewards were coming to any of them, most would come to him. Lucius, however, ignored the sour look on Nott's face entirely as he read Avery's note, a smile spreading across his face and lighting up his eyes. This was exactly it, the unknown curse that had been his stumbling block so far. He laid the parchment carefully on the table in front of him, dismissing Nott with a careless 'Tell Avery thanks.' The other Death Eater left with an inelegant sniff.

'For Merlin's sake, Nott, shut the _door_.' The ensuing bang jolted every nerve in Lucius' body.

At least now, though, he would be able to make something approaching progress. Towards what, he had no idea. Which was a good point, actually, Lucius thought. He didn't know why he was doing this. In fact, he had been told pitifully little beyond the barest bones of instructions. Presumably, he decided, something important lay behind this door, something that the Dark Lord wanted to get his hands on. But it could have been anything. It had never before struck Lucius as strange that he didn't know. Certainly it bore little relevance to the work he was doing; the enchantments he had managed to isolate protected from intruders rather than contained any kind of force. But still. It was curious, maddeningly so. This strange and alien concept, this unknown and mysterious entity that lurked behind the charm-laden door – all Lucius could do was hold it in his mind's eye, regarding it with a blankness born of total and absolute lack of understanding. He would rather have known sketchy details and speculated to fill in the blanks than have no clue whatsoever as to what the hell it was.

But when all was said and done, it wasn't exactly important. Oh, it would slowly and persistently drive him insane over the three days he had left until his deadline, but then there was very little that hadn't been, recently. Of course, it wasn't as though he was grasping at every available distraction to take his mind from the task in hand. Of course not. 

He couldn't understand why this was proving so difficult. It was nothing beyond what had been asked of him before. But then, perhaps that was exactly the problem. It was nothing new, nothing exciting, but moreover nothing that seemed to have a definite and concrete purpose. For a little less than a year now he had been taking apart and solving incidental annoyances that the Dark Lord wanted untangled, assuming all the while that he was contributing to some sort of coherent whole. But it had been a little less than a year now, and he had seen nothing to show for it, and frankly, he was starting to tire of it. What was the point in working around the clock if he wasn't going to see some sort of result? He had barely seen Severus over the last month. He would lie awake next to him every night, watching him sleep with wide, intent grey eyes, studying his face almost feverishly to make up for every moment he hadn't seen it over the past four weeks. And he didn't want to do it anymore. He didn't want to have to do it. He wanted to be able to see Severus, to touch his face and brush his hair out of his eyes whenever he bloody well felt like it. 

He knew he was being petulant, just as he knew that it would probably all be worth it in the end. It might even be worth it before then. Perhaps this work would finally push the Dark Lord towards rewarding Lucius in the manner he had been so cryptically alluding to of late. For whatever he may have been in the eyes of his fellow Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy was something of a favourite of the Dark Lord. He didn't know why, although he assumed it to be something to do with the skill and competence with which he had been performing every task his Lord had set him. He was something akin to a teacher's pet, he supposed, and while such sycophantic self-ingratiation hardly appealed to him there could be no doubt that it would come in infinitely useful. Lucius didn't know that to the Dark Lord, he was everything you could want in a Death Eater. Supremely clever without being dangerously so, an independent thinker while still impressionable, with a glittering façade to present to the world and, most importantly, the potential to be seduced by the promise of power. Not so submissive that his very presence grated on one's nerves, but willing enough to show servility to one who promised him remuneration for it. In fact, as far as the Dark Lord was concerned, Lucius Malfoy had just one flaw. While adept at concealing his emotions, he was inept at controlling them.

The door opened this time with a creak that shuddered through Lucius' temples.

'_What?_' he snapped, looking up, grey eyes shooting daggers towards the door. Avery smiled lazily in the face of Lucius' irritation.

'Tired, Malfoy?'

'Fuck off, Avery.' 

'Charming.' Avery murmured a few words, and the parchment in his hands folded itself into a paper aeroplane. 'But I won't hold it against you,' he continued, taking careful aim at the bridge of Lucius' nose. 'This turned up on my desk from a new recruit. It looks like it might have some relevance.'

'You dare, Avery, and I swear I'll make you regret – ' The aeroplane hit Lucius on his left cheekbone, a little below his eye. He flicked his wand from his pocket and absently threw a streak of scarlet light at Avery as he read over the note, unheeding of the other man's yelp of pain as a long, shallow gash opened across his cheek. 'I told you,' he murmured, looking critically at his handiwork. Avery glared at him.

'If it wasn't for the fact that the Dark Lord is watching every room in this place, I'd hex you through the ceiling, Malfoy.' Lucius laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound.

'I'd like to see you try. But we've already established that you're not going to, so it doesn't matter. Thanks for this, by the way, it's quite a useful little spell.' Lucius' airy tone felt dangerous, and Avery decided to proceed with caution.

'No problem, Malfoy.' Lucius didn't seem to have heard him.

'Although why everyone in this accursed place feels the need to communicate through letters instead of coming and bloody talking to me is beyond me.'

'No, I can't imagine why they aren't queuing up for the pleasure of your company,' Avery muttered under his breath, watching Lucius with trepidation. Again, the blonde seemed to be ignoring him.

'And why our Master can't organise a coherent group meeting so we'd all know what the fuck we were working towards remains a mystery to me,' Lucius remarked, voice keening up dangerously.

'I'll just be going, then,' Avery said, sidling through the door. Lucius watched him go. He paused for a second, beginning to count to five but giving up at two.

'Shut the _bloody_ door!' he shouted, voice reverberating around the room. He twitched violently at the bang that followed before turning, heavy-eyed, back to his work.

* * *

'Severus. I've been expecting you.' The smile that greeted him was exactingly pleasant. Severus returned it carefully.

'I'm not late, am I, my Lord?' he inquired politely, stepping out from the doorframe. Voldemort laughed airily.

'Oh, no, Severus. You're pleasingly punctual.' Severus smiled a courteous response.

'I do try, my Lord.' The empty pleasantries did their job, Severus thought. And although he had spotted the Dark Lord as a Legilimens within minutes of meeting him, Severus had come up against far more powerful. Dumbledore, for one. Evan Rosier, for another. Evan in particular had been useful to him, having offered his services on numerous occasions to help Severus develop as an Occlumens, with the result that here and now before the Dark Lord he was confident that Voldemort could see no deeper than his practised manners.

It was useful, really, Severus thought. No one ever knew when he was lying, except Evan. And although his natural talents lay more towards Occlumency, he was a sufficiently accomplished Legilimens to spot a falsehood when he saw one. With the Dark Lord, though, it was difficult. Severus was a better Occlumens than Voldemort was a Legilimens, but regrettably, the converse was also true. It took concentration to penetrate the Dark Lord's mind, concentration that would leave Severus vulnerable, so he rarely tried. But sometimes, when Voldemort let his guard down, there were flashes that could be picked up on. It was all a matter of knowing what you were looking for.

'Come in, Severus, come in, please. Have a seat.' It was Tom Riddle, Severus thought, who flashed him that dazzling smile as he sat, that smile that lit up the features of the charismatic young man he had begun his career as. Still, to a point, he was handsome. 'I know I promised you the grand tour,' he continued, a disarming familiarity to his tone, 'but I just have to tidy up a loose end or two. If you'll give me a second, then.'

'Of course, my Lord,' said Severus lightly. Obediently, and as expected, he turned his attention from his new employer's scrawling quill. It was a lovely office, he thought, casting an appreciative eye over the well-cared for and equally well-thumbed volumes that lined the walls. The thin, long-limbed man on the other side of the desk was throned by full-length bay windows that looked out onto the Swiss Alps and diffused the room with a cold and brilliant light. Which was a little strange, given that Severus had arrived at the front door on a rainy day in Wiltshire. But a nice piece of enchantment, he thought, even if the postcard view was a little unoriginal.

'Done,' said Tom Riddle, with an air of satisfied finality. Severus' attention flickered back to him instantly. 'So,' he continued, sitting back in his chair and fixing Severus with his scarlet-shot eyes. 'I assume you had little trouble in finding us.'

'In a manner of speaking,' Severus said, smiling dryly. That morning, he had taken hold of the Portkey Lucius had left him and been jerked to the foot of a large and unnatural looking hill next to a sign reading _Ministry of Defence Property: No Trespassing_. It had taken him a good few minutes of searching, all the while glancing over his shoulder for anything that looked like a firing range, to realise that into the foot of this large and unnatural looking hill was set a small, grass-covered door. Voldemort laughed his affected laugh.

'Yes, it's hardly the ideal location. But it serves its purpose admirably. All that was needed was to dispose of the Muggles working here, invest a little time and money in refurbishment, and here we are with a headquarters on which no one, wizard or Muggle, would be stupid enough to trespass.' Severus frowned.

'And does the Ministry of Defence not notice that one of their facilities is mysteriously out of action?' Voldemort laughed again, more unpleasantly this time.

'Severus, the Muggle fools that run the Ministry have tightened security to such an extent that not even their own men are allowed to know what is happening from base to base. It is ridiculously easy for my Death Eaters to publish a series of wordily abstruse reports full of meaningless code every now and again and keep the Muggles off our backs entirely. And of course, there are ways and means of dealing with the more irritatingly tenacious.'

'Of course,' Severus agreed, absently. Rather clever, really, he thought, vaguely impressed.

'But come, now,' the Dark Lord said, moving out from behind his desk. Severus stood awkwardly, standing slightly on the edge of his robes. 'A tour, then.' With a perfunctory smile and a slight nod of acknowledgement, Severus followed the Dark Lord out of his office and into a panelled corridor that looked somewhat familiar. 'I will show you the most important areas,' the Dark Lord said, with the air of someone who believed themselves to be doing a great service. 'But I wouldn't advise that you spend too much time wandering these corridors,' he continued. 'They tend to be awfully similar, and it is all too easy to get lost.' Severus stored that for future reference, and began mentally mapping the turns they were making. He noted, curiously, that some of the branching passages they passed were radiating unfriendly magic. Not ones to be walked down. They stopped for the first time outside an archway, through which Severus could see four men, all somewhere between twenty and forty, drinking coffee and arguing around a piece of parchment.

'My Muggle Relations officers,' Voldemort said with a nasty smile, waving a long-fingered hand in the direction of the Death Eaters. 'Responsible for such things as elaborating the Ministry of Defence reports I spoke of earlier. Essentially, they keep this underground organisation underground, if you like.' Severus nodded, but he wasn't really paying much attention. He had recognised one of the men as Marcus Lestrange, Lucius' closest friend and by default a good friend of Severus'. Hardly surprising, Severus supposed, that he would be here. Lestrange had winged it through most of his theory exams on the basis of a nice way with words, and his sharp brown eyes were finely attuned to detail, both of which would make him invaluable here. As Severus turned to leave Marcus caught his eye and winked a greeting; a touch of familiarity that made Severus feel strangely comfortable.

They walked on. Or Severus supposed they did. It was difficult to tell when the walls didn't seem to change from step to step. Every now and then the monotony was broken by a door, or a left or right turning, but besides that every panel of the walls was the same width, papered in the same heavy, expensive-looking, two-tone green striped satin, and every torch was positioned along it at exactly equal intervals, and the gold motif on the forest green carpet recurred in precise hexagonal patterns. Or triangles, Severus thought, as he looked at it again. Or even pyramids. Or diamonds. He watched his feet as he walked, eyes focusing, unfocusing and refocusing on the tiny gold shapes, tracing and binding them into different arrangements each time he looked. 

Voldemort stopped again, this time outside a heavy brass-handled door that melted away at a touch of the Dark Lord's hand. He motioned for Severus to look through into the room that was revealed.

'Training,' he explained, as Severus studied the spacious chamber with an eyebrow raised in curiosity. There were two young Death Eaters, one male, one female, duelling clumsily along the room's length, hurling curses Severus recognised as highly illegal, and one, a little older, watching. The duellers' hexes only seemed to be successful about one time in three. 'Some of those who come to me have great potential, but very little, ah, formal instruction. This is where they receive the appropriate teaching.'

'_Crucio!_' The young woman had finally managed to produce an Unforgivable, after four or five attempts had sputtered and died. Her partner crumpled to the floor with a scream as the woman, dark-haired with heavy, hooded eyes, stepped back in triumph.

'Very good, Bellatrix,' Voldemort called into the room, smiling an indulgent smile. The woman, unheeding of her partner's agony, turned towards the door, eyes widening in awe as she saw the source of the compliment. She sank into an undignified sort of curtsey, flushing with an ecstatic pride.

'Thank you, my Lord, thank you,' she murmured breathlessly. Severus looked hard at her. He knew her name, although this was the first time he had met her. Bellatrix Black was the other half of the Black 'let's marry our daughters off as quickly as possible so we no longer have to live with the vile little things' marriage agreement. Though Narcissa's slightly older sister, the two were as unlike as siblings could be. Not merely in appearance, although Bellatrix's dramatic colouring and strikingly strong features were a far cry from Narcissa's pale and elegant delicacy. Bellatrix was, according to Lucius, anyway, that little bit more...fanatical, he had eventually concluded. 

'She gets awfully worked up about things,' Lucius had said, wrinkling his nose a little. 'No decorum.'

'What do you expect from a bloodline that produced Sirius 'Subtlety? What the fuck is that?' Black?' Severus had replied, dryly.

'Narcissa managed to escape it, though.' And the subject had been abruptly changed.

Inbred, sycophantic idiot, Severus decided, looking at her flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes. He wondered why Marcus wasn't running for the hills at the mere thought of having to marry her. Strangely, though, Marcus usually spoke of her quite fondly. Perhaps it's the novelty value, Severus mused. It would certainly be interesting, at least, to be married to a nutcase. 

'You are making excellent progress, Bellatrix. Keep it up.' Severus rolled his eyes as the young woman (was she a year older than him? A year older than Narcissa, Lucius had said) fell over herself to thank the Dark Lord, her benevolent master, her gracious sire. Severus shifted impatiently. This held no interest for him.

'Come, Severus. Let us continue.' The two of them set off again down yet another identical corridor. It was difficult to tell if they were actually moving, thought Severus, or if their feet were simply treading aimlessly the same carpet over and over again. The Dark Lord was talking but Severus wasn't listening, which he supposed could be construed as dangerous. It was one of those conversations, though, when all that is really expected of the listener are appropriate noises in appropriate places, but even they aren't really missed when they aren't there. And besides, Severus thought, allowing the light, pleasant voice to wash over him, what he was saying was hardly fascinating. Nor was what he _wasn't_ saying. For all Severus tried to pick up menacing undertones, or veiled insinuations, he couldn't help but reach the conclusion that the Dark Lord really was just making small talk. Some twittering about the problems he had had with refurbishing the place.

This time, the door they stopped at was on their right. It creaked open at the Dark Lord's touch to reveal a room more cluttered than those he had seen so far, packed haphazardly with desks and every available surface, walls, ceiling and all, papered with maps and photographs.

'Reconnaissance,' stated Voldemort, waving a hand grandly at the mess. Severus nodded, leaning in for a closer look. Considering the place looked like a disaster area, the six or seven Death Eaters scattered around looked remarkably calm. One or two were working intently at minute squares of clean desk space, three others were huddled in conference in front of a large, wall-mounted map, two more looked as though they were playing Hangman, but Severus couldn't tell for sure. It could be Battleships, he thought, absently.

'What sort of reconnaissance?' he asked, genuinely curious. The Dark Lord looked pleased at his interest.

'These loyal followers of mine are paving the way for our success,' the older man declared. 'They look for strongholds and weaknesses within the Ministry, both physical and ideological. They seek out targets that we can attack and be reasonably sure of success. They also provide us with an idea of if and when the wind is changing as regards public attitude towards our current government.' Severus nodded, digesting this.

'Useful,' he said, finally.

'Invaluable,' Voldemort corrected. 'Shall we?' Severus nodded acquiescence, and they moved on. 

They continued down innumerable corridors, Severus having given up any attempts at charting the paths they had thus far walked, until the Dark Lord stopped at a fourth door, again identical to all the rest. 

'Experimental Curses,' Voldemort announced, pushing it open. This door, unlike the others, opened simply on to another long, identically decorated corridor, from which yet more doors branched. Severus looked curiously at the Dark Lord.

'Most of my loyal Death Eaters are employed in this field, and most work alone within it,' Voldemort explained, setting off down the newly revealed corridor with Severus in tow. 'It would have been unnecessary and impractical to throw them all into one big room and leave them to get on with it.'

'I suppose it would,' agreed Severus absently, his mind elsewhere. This was yet another corner coloured in of his mental conception of Voldemort's followers, his Death Eaters, this army being readied for battle. His quick mind held all he had gleaned so far that day in delicately arranged layers, carefully balanced into a coherent picture. With a blink, he let the house of cards collapse in on itself, turning his attention instead back to the Dark Lord, who was surveying the myriad of doors before him thoughtfully. 

'I have found, Severus,' the older man went on distractedly, still contemplating the doors, 'that the magic widely known to wizardkind is not...extensive enough for my purposes. The Death Eaters behind these doors are working on extending it.' Finally, the Dark Lord had Severus' full attention.

'So you're actually creating new magics,' he said, eyes sharp with interest. The Dark Lord laughed his airy, affected laugh.

'Yes, I thought that might appeal to you. Don't worry, Severus. Though you will not be serving me here, rest assured the task I have for you is not dissimilar. My Death Eaters here work with wand, runic and arithmantic magic, but your skills, I feel, lie elsewhere, don't you think?' Voldemort trailed off as he narrowed his eyes in thought at a door to his right, hardly expecting the answer that Severus decided not to give. The older man looked at Severus shrewdly for a moment, as though trying to gauge something. Severus looked impassively back. 

'Let me show you some of the work being undertaken here,' Voldemort said eventually. He turned to the door he had been scowling at and pushed it open, motioning for Severus to enter. A distinctly irritable voice snapped out a welcome as he did.

'_What_?' Severus started. He knew that voice better than any other voice in the world. Recognised that unique random blend of deadened tiredness, frustrated edginess, shattered sensitivity. Lucius Malfoy looked up from his desk and immediately cursed himself. 

'Now, Lucius. What sort of welcome is that for our newest recruit?' came the Dark Lord's silky voice from behind Severus. The younger man just stood there, staring, eyes bright, face crossed by a reflexive smile and slowly relaxing from the jolt of recognition that jerked in his stomach and felt like a flame had ignited every time he saw Lucius. Staring at the reciprocation, the mirrored image of his own delight that sparked across the tired face of the man seated at the desk.

__

I'm sorry. The thought seemed to echo in Severus' mind as clearly as though Lucius had said it. But there was no need for him to apologise; the gleam in those grey eyes betrayed just how welcome Severus was here. For a second Severus' smile deepened as the two locked eyes, before his face just as Lucius' slipped instantly back into guarded impassivity.

'My apologies, my Lord,' Lucius said smoothly, turning his attention to the Dark Lord. 'It was remiss of me to be so abrupt. Please accept my assurances that it will not happen again, my Lord.' Severus watched Lucius interestedly. His words felt so empty, and yet fell with the utmost sincerity upon the ears they were intended for. Even his practised smile glittered with candour.

But he was tired, thought Severus, concern twisting like a corkscrew in his gut. So very tired. His hair was dishevelled, fingertip trails rumpling it into tangled strands, his skin delicately fragile in its translucency. Grey eyes had softened upon looking up at Severus, but circled by deep shadows retained a painful hollowness. 

'I should hope not,' replied Voldemort, though there was no threat in his tone. 'How are you progressing, Lucius?'

'Not as quickly as I would have liked, my Lord, but quickly enough,' Lucius answered, keeping his eyes resolutely off Severus, who he could see smiling out of the corner of his eye. 'Avery's help has proved invaluable,' he continued. He was lying through his teeth; Severus could always tell. Briefly the younger man wondered exactly how unhelpful Avery had been.

'Lucius has been attempting to disable certain security curses at the Ministry of Magic,' Voldemort explained, turning to Severus, who was caught a little off guard. He saw Lucius suppress a giggle as he hastily regained his composure.

'I see,' Severus said, somewhat irrelevantly. Voldemort looked sharply at him before motioning towards the door.

'I think we have seen enough here, Severus,' he said. 'Let us move on.' And he swept out of the room, leaving Severus no choice but to follow him. He shot one last glance at Lucius, who smiled softly at him. Severus smiled back and left, shutting the door carefully behind him.

* * *

__

Under the Dark Lord's wing at last, Severus. I never imagined it would take this long. But here you are with me at last in this godforsaken labyrinth.

You came into the room alone, Severus, but you followed him out of it. I've never seen you follow anyone anywhere. You jumped at his command, and I can't really blame you for it when I do it myself, each and every day. He demands respect, and deserves it. But still. You've never even followed the most deserving of leaders. It isn't what you do. I've always believed that the choices you make are independent of everyone and everything, that all you do, you do because you decide to. But that exit felt decided for you.

Lucius Malfoy puts down his quill, never wanting to pick it up again. He doesn't know why the Dark Lord brought Severus to see him. But whatever his misgivings, whatever niggling worries unsettle him, he is glad that he did. It reminds him of Hogwarts, the early days when their relationship was made up mostly of those almost stolen interchanges, glimpses caught in corridors from lesson to lesson and bright-eyed smiles flashed across the heads of first years, heads turning at the slightest glimmer of silver hair or black eyes and breath catching slightly as gazes locked.

__

To this day I don't know why I fell in love with you then. I know that now I love you for who you are and what you do to me, but it's something so huge I can't understand it all at once. It comes to me in flashes when I see you, when I hear your voice, when I think about you when you aren't there and I realise tiny, incidental things that don't really matter to anyone, like that I love you because of the way you rub the bridge of your nose when you're tired, or because you love Muggle literature and hardly admit it to anyone. 

Sometimes it's bigger. Sometimes it's the fundamental that hits me, the essence that really makes you who you are, like when I can see you as the pure aesthete and intellectual that you are, when your eyes glitter in the face of some problem or conjecture, some thought or idea that impresses you or some beauty that captivates you. When I can see you appreciate things on a level that I can barely understand, when you are attracted by an allure than I just can't see. And perhaps it fascinates me in you because I can't see it in myself, or at least not so intensely. I don't know. But I love you for it, though I don't know if I'd ever tell you so.

But then...What was it for me back then? Oh, I found you attractive, yes, compelling, more so. I still do. You are, and were, thrilling to listen to; I'm still not sure I've ever heard anyone who can talk quite like you. But it all seems so damn trivial when I think of it like that. When I think that you won me with your words, and the mystery of those dark eyes glittering out form behind a curtain of hair. So mundane. What else was it, though? I can still see you, back at Hogwarts, before I really knew you. Can still see you walking the corridors as though nothing and nobody mattered to you, entirely absorbed in your own world.

Perhaps not entirely. There was still Rosier, and still is. It used to drive me insane when you were still nothing more than an idle fascination for me, the way the two of you always looked so damn conspiratorial together. You still do, and always have done ever since I first came to know who you were. And I didn't know then, and I still don't now, Severus, what is he to you? What does he do for you that no one else can? Because there's something that I can't put my finger on, and for the most part I try not to think about it because if I did, it would drive me mad. He doesn't like me and never has, and I suppose I can't blame him. Because you see, Sev, it's easy to see what you were, and still are, to him. But now you're that, and more, to me, and I'm that, and more, to you. 

Whatever that might be. Am I your everything, Severus? I want to be. But I'll never ask, and perhaps it's better, anyway, if I don't know. You're everything to me now, and I'd like to think you always will be. But I don't trust myself enough. I don't know if I could honestly say that forever and always, I will value you above all else. And if I can't give you that, why should I expect it from you? But I do, nevertheless. 

You think Narcissa has taken a part of me that should belong to you, but she's taken nothing and nor have I given anything to her. I don't know how to make you understand this, Sev. I know you hate her, I know you despise her, I know you loathe the very thought of her being even within fifty feet of me. And I wonder sometimes if you look at her and see her cousin, that idiot Gryffindor who nearly killed you and you never said why and wouldn't let me lay a finger on him in revenge. I would have killed him for you, Sev, and you never let me. Here and now I would happily torture him, in cold blood and uncaring, make him pay for the look on your face that will haunt me to my grave as you returned, bloody and gasping and shaking. Make him pay for the ways I know_ he used to make your life a misery, although to this day you've never told me. Why, Sev? Why did you never let me punish them the way they deserved? They got away with it time and time again, and it makes me wonder if you see Narcissa as the last straw, the Blacks' ultimate victory over you. Well, I didn't choose her, Sev. It wasn't my fault. I don't want this any more than you do. And you're not the one who has to pretend to be happily married to her, either. _

Oh, Sev, I love you. I love you desperately, more than anything else in the world. I wish I knew how, or why, but I don't. I just know that you make me feel_, like no one else can. _

It all seems so simple. So why aren't things easier?.

* * *

'I will await your arrival here tomorrow, then, Severus.' It was almost a request. Almost. Almost a show of consideration, or even respect. But the intonation wasn't quite there. Not that it made any difference, of course, Severus mused. Requested or demanded, he would come. It just would have been...interesting, he thought, to have been asked. No matter.

'Of course, my Lord,' Severus answered, smiling politely. There was a moment of silence, before he queried:

'How do you recommend that I get here, my Lord? Is Apparating likely to cause much...' He paused. 'Unwanted attention,' he finished. Voldemort nodded in understanding. 

'Astute of you to ask, Severus. Naturally, it is impossible to Apparate or Disapparate inside the complex, and you are quite right in thinking that the sudden appearance of a flock of Death Eaters in a field in Wiltshire every morning could arouse suspicion in anyone who manages to get past Muggle Relations.' The expression on Voldemort's face suggested to Severus that he didn't think there would be many of these.

'Luckily, however,' he continued, 'I have managed to devise an alternative solution.' He looked rather pleased with himself, thought Severus. In an odd way, it was vaguely endearing. Severus graciously looked expectantly impressed. 'Hold out your arm,' Voldemort instructed. Naturally, Severus did so unquestioningly, unthinkingly extending the arm that bore his mark of loyalty. Voldemort looked at the Mark contemplatively, almost as though he had never taken the time to look at one before. Whatever he was thinking, however, it soon passed, and Severus watched as Voldemort narrowed his scarlet-shot eyes at the Mark in concentration. Wandless magic, he thought, still waiting for the spell he knew was coming. It was not the first time he had seen it, but it still impressed him. He wondered if the Dark Lord would ever be willing to teach him.

'This,' the Dark Lord said almost abstractedly, 'will bring you to your workplace upon touching the Mark with your right little finger.' Severus looked at him. 'Specific, I know. But it minimises the chance of accidental transportation.'

Suddenly, Severus felt a deathly cold pierce the skin at his wrist. He shivered involuntarily as it wriggled beneath his skin, squirming a little at the uncomfortable tickling feeling it induced. As the feeling subsided, he saw Voldemort smiling slightly. 

'Odd,' he remarked lightly. 'Most of my Death Eaters thus far seemed to rather like it.'

'I'm not fond of being tickled.' The almost childish honesty and utter inappropriateness of his instant response startled Severus. Luckily, the Dark Lord's smile merely deepened a little.

'Indeed?' The single word hung uncomfortably in the air between them for a moment, before Voldemort's tone became once again businesslike.

'As for leaving,' he went on, without ever having seemed to leave off, 'each office is connected to a modification of the Floo network.' Again, he seemed pleased with himself, although Severus couldn't help but wonder what part Voldemort had actually played in the development of this idea. 'Modified in that each fireplace can only take you to one other, namely, that of the home of the specific Death Eater who works in that office, and that you can only travel from here, to there.' He smiled at Severus. 'Ingenious, if I do say so myself.' Severus couldn't help but smile back. At that precise instant, he sounded just like Lucius.

'Indeed, my Lord,' he agreed. For a moment, there was something like friendliness in the air between them. Then it was gone, and Severus found himself under the close and uncomfortable scrutiny of one of Voldemort's most piercing gazes.

'Your workplace, however,' he began, a thoughtful furrow to his brow, 'does not currently have a fireplace. Something will have been done about that by tomorrow.' There was an odd, not entirely unpleasant pause. Severus waited expectantly for this train of thought to arrive at its final destination. Then, a look of finality crossed Voldemort's face and he nodded, evidently to himself.

'Tonight, then,' he said decisively. 'As I understand it, you are living at Malfoy Manor.' Severus merely nodded in concession; he saw no reason for an explanation. 'Then you may use the fireplace in Lucius' office to return home.' Severus couldn't help it; he visibly brightened. He had been hoping for a chance to see Lucius before he left, but hadn't thought he would be able to escape the eye of the Dark Lord. Although there was one slight problem, Severus realised, his heart sinking again. He had absolutely no clue how to get to Lucius' office.

Voldemort sighed with all the benevolent exasperation of someone trying to explain something very simple to someone endearingly stupid. Severus looked at him. For a second, the Dark Lord's eyes were unfocused, as glassy as bleeding emeralds, then the older man turned to look at Severus.

'That door, I believe you'll find,' he said, pointing to one slightly to his left. Severus looked at him with poorly concealed astonishment.

'You only have to - ?'

'It is not quite _that_ simple, Severus.' The Dark Lord cut him off quite abruptly, although the same patient smile played about his lips. 'The inside of this bunker is entirely constructed from magic. One of its more important features is that if you think about the door you wish to open, it will appear before you. On one proviso, of course,' he added, with an unreadable smile. Severus looked at him, the unspoken question clear in his gaze.

'That your reasons for opening the aforementioned door are judged reasonable by me. How?' he asked, again reading the question in Severus' eyes. 'Simple. This place was conceived by me, therefore every inch of it bears the mark of my mind. I merely enhanced this in the basic wall and floor structure.' Severus was a little confused.

'Then why – '

'Why did I take you down so many corridors to begin with?' Voldemort finished. Severus nodded. The older man smiled unpleasantly. 'To give you an idea of the trouble you would find yourself in were I to find your intentions _un_reasonable.'

Severus understood. He also decided that he would learn to get around this obstacle if it was the only thing he did here. He nodded acquiescently at the Dark Lord, who clapped his hands together in satisfaction.

'Then that will be all for today, Severus. And inform Lucius that he has worked hard enough for today, and may leave when he wishes. Tell him I would advise him to make the most of this opportunity, I will not often be this generous.' Severus bowed.

'I will, my Lord.' And with that, he opened the door to Lucius' office.

Lucius didn't seem surprised when Severus walked in. Pleased, yes, but not surprised. Which in itself surprised Severus, a little. Not that it mattered, though, not at that moment. Lucius was smiling across the room at him with a muted and tranquil pleasure; for the first time all day, Severus felt himself relax. There was a moment of satisfied silence, then:

'Hello.' Severus held Lucius' gaze for a second, almost smiling. Then, unable to contain it, quiet hopeless laughter began to escape his lips. It just sounded so odd, so very _normal_ in such a very strange place after such a very, very strange day. Lucius looked vaguely affronted.

'I've said _much_ stranger things to you in greeting than that,' he pointed out.

'I know,' Severus replied, still smiling with that odd air of resignation. 'It's just…' he looked at Lucius again, then shook his head. 'Not important,' he finished. Lucius shrugged.

'If you say so.' The smile was beginning to die on Severus' lips. He felt…not distance, exactly, he thought, not as though Lucius wasn't all _there_, but more, perhaps, that he wasn't all Lucius. Every emotion he saw in Lucius' face and heard in his voice seemed to have had its sharp edge blunted; he lacked a vitality to which Severus had become accustomed.

'Long day?' he inquired. 

'Recently I've come to redefine my concepts of "long" and "short",' Lucius replied with a grimace. He suppressed a yawn. 'And to be fair, by my usual standards, today falls somewhere between "lengthy" and "prolonged".' Severus laughed, a sound of genuine amusement that seemed to animate Lucius somewhat.

'Of course, if you hadn't arrived,' he continued, 'it might have edged closer towards "painfully drawn out".' Severus' laughter was contagious, and Lucius went on with a bright-eyed smile of his own. 'It could have been worse, though. The other day I reached a new upper limit: "seconds away from suicide". This was nowhere near that.'

When some people are less than themselves, it takes the wit of a friend to cheer them up. Lucius Malfoy always felt better when given the chance to exercise his own wit. And he always felt very much better when it was Severus laughing in response. It was odd, he supposed, but he just liked _watching_ Severus. Laughing, crying, thinking, sleeping, anything. There was a lot he would have said he liked about Severus, but of everything this was the most inexplicable, this pleasure derived from his very presence. It confused Lucius no end. But he rather liked it.

Severus looked across at him with twinkling eyes. Oh, he could still see the tiredness that clung possessively to his lover, dull and grey and heavy. But now, at least, it had faded, lightened, loosened its grip; at least now it didn't look like it was choking him. 

Lucius watched as Severus came to perch on his desk, arranging his feet on Lucius' lap. Then, with a sigh of release he sank forward, resting his forehead on Severus' knees. He felt Severus' long fingers in his hair and smiled.

'Do you know,' he murmured, voice muffled by the folds of Severus' black robes, 'that I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life as I was to see you just then?' From somewhere above him, he heard a murmur that sounded like 'I know what you mean.' Severus, however, was far too engrossed in Lucius' hair to bother with enunciation. Which, in Lucius' opinion, could only be a good thing. The fingertips gently twisting curls in silvery hair were slowly turning his brain to a state of pleasurable mush; his breathing was slowing; his eyes were closing…

He sat up abruptly. It startled Severus, who looked at him quizzically.

'It was sending me to sleep,' Lucius explained. He smiled, suddenly and brightly, at Severus. 'I don't see enough of you as it is,' he went on, a note of bitterness all but imperceptible creeping into his voice. 'I certainly don't intend to sleep through an opportunity that I can't help but feel won't come up again very often.'

'He's given you the evening off,' Severus informed him, in an attempt to stop him becoming overly maudlin. Lucius smiled at this, evidently pleased, but his cynicism was unshakeable.

'Like I said,' he repeated, 'an opportunity that won't come again any time soon.' 

'I don't doubt that,' Severus conceded. 'So let's make the most of it.' He leant forward, lips brushing the top of Lucius' head, the bridge of his nose, finally reaching Lucius' mouth. The older man closed his eyes, relaxing into the kiss; Severus' hands were on his shoulders, his touch sending shivers down his spine; Lucius was reaching for Severus, fingers tracing the lines of his hipbones; Severus slid from the desk onto Lucius' lap…

And then, in an instant, Severus found himself looking, disgruntled, into Lucius' over-bright eyes, two feet of empty air between them where a second earlier there had been barely two inches, and wondering, hurt and confused, why Lucius had pushed him away.

'I'm sorry, Sev,' he murmured, eyes pleading for understanding. 'It's just - ' he broke off, visibly troubled. 'Here - it feels almost as though he's watching us.' Severus had got no such feeling. But Lucius looked genuinely disquieted, and it wrenched at something deep inside Severus to see it. And Lucius, after all, knew better than he did to what extent it was wise to be wary of the Dark Lord. His year spent here must have shown him something, Severus supposed, that he himself had not yet seen.

He nodded, shaking the vague feeling of resentment and smiling at Lucius, who looked visibly relieved. It felt late in Lucius' room. There was no way of telling; it just felt it.

'Home, then?'

****

TBC


End file.
